Mademoiselle Fifi eBook

The table, cleared in an instant, was turned into
a mortuary bed, and the four officers, straight, rigid
and sobered up, with the harsh faces of warriors on
duty stood near the windows, searching and scanning
the night.

The torrential rain was continuing. An incessant
rippling filled the darkness, a floating murmur of
water that falls and water that runs, water that drops
and water that gushes forth.

Suddenly a rifle shot was heard; then another far
away; and thus for four hours one heard from time
to time, near or distant reports of firing and rallying
cries, strange words shouted like a call by guttural
voices.

At daybreak everybody returned. Two soldiers
had been killed and three others wounded by their
comrades in the eagerness of the chase and the confusion
of the nocturnal pursuit.

They had not been able to find Rachel.

Then the inhabitants were terrorized, the houses searched
most carefully, the whole region combed, beaten, scoured.
The Jewess did not seem to have left any trace of
her passage.

The General, who had been notified, ordered to hush
the matter up so as not to give a bad example in the
Army, and he disciplined the Commander who, in turn,
punished his subordinates. The General had said:
“We do not go to war to indulge in orgies and
caress prostitutes.” And exasperated Graf
Farlsberg resolved to take revenge on the country.

As he needed a pretext to take drastic measures without
constraint, he summoned the Priest and ordered him
to ring the Church bell at the burial of Markgraf
von Eyrik.

Contrary to general expectation, the priest showed
himself docile, humble, full of attention. And
when the body of Mademoiselle Fifi, carried by soldiers,
preceded, surrounded and followed by soldiers, who
marched with loaded rifles, left the Chateau d’Urville,
on the way to the cemetery, for the first time the
bell sounded the knell in a gay tone, as if a friendly
hand had been fondling it.

It rang also in the evening, and the next day and
every day; it chimed as much as they wanted.
Sometimes also, in the dead of night, it would ring
all alone and throw two or three notes in the darkness,
seized by a singular mirth, awakened one knew not why.
All the peasants in the neighborhood then thought that
the bell had been bewitched; and no one except the
Priest and the Sexton came near the bell-tower.

A poor girl was living up there, in fear and solitude,
secretly fed by those two men.

She remained there until the German troops departed.
Then, one evening, the Priest having borrowed the
baker’s cart, drove himself and the prisoner
as far as the Gate of Rouen. When they reached
the Gate, the Priest kissed her; she got off the cart
and quickly went back to the disreputable house, the
keeper of which had thought that she was dead.

She was taken out of the house of prostitution shortly
afterwards by a patriot without prejudice, who loved
her for her brave act, and then, having loved her
for herself, married her and made of her a lady as
good as many others.